To Salvage One Inch
by ThriftShopYarn
Summary: Bond must interrogate Q. (One year post-Skyfall.) Now Complete.
1. Chapter 1

Summary: Bond must interrogate Q. Hyoscine pentothal, the (thankfully fictional) pain-causing drug, has been borrowed from _24_. Actually, the whole premise of this story was inspired by _24_.

I also want to take this opportunity to explain something. It's more so I don't feel like a complete hypocrite, so please bear with me. I have never been a fan of the James Bond franchise. There are certain things I like about the movies (the gadgets, the music, Judi Dench, well-fitting suits), but at the same time these are movies that have a history of portraying women horribly. But then came Ben Whishaw's Q, with his floppy hair and his Scrabble mug, and I...may have tripped over my principles a bit and fallen face first into this fandom. So, I am not writing this as a fan of the franchise, but as a fan of what fic writers have done with this franchise. Okay, thanks for indulging me. Moving on...

Rating: T

Warnings: Non-graphic torture. Swears. Also I am neither British nor a good map reader, so I may have butchered a few things.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to the James Bond franchise. Although if my prayers are answered someday I will own that cardigan. You know the one.

To Salvage One Inch

It was not a question of whether or not he had the ability.

Bond knew that, given time and enough caffeine, the slim young man he watched through the one-way glass could bring down governments with his laptop.

The question was whether or not he actually would.

This isn't happening, Bond thought. This was Q. He had not gotten along with a quartermaster so well in years. Their success rate was through the roof. They had inside jokes. They bantered for god's sake. There was no way Q could be responsible for the cyber attack that had allowed hackers to devastate the firewall and slip in and out of MI6's system with the schematics of a new British-Afghani military base. The base, in the early stages of construction, had exploded two days prior, reduced to nothing but ashes and craters and death.

Then why did Q look so goddamn suspicious?

...

_"Look at these dates," M had told him. "Q-Branch logbooks state Q was on MI6 grounds for every one of them, but he wasn't. We've got security footage of him leaving. He's good; wiped almost every camera, but he couldn't get all of them."_

_"And you've got him in a holding cell based on this?" Bond had asked, eyebrows raised in disbelief. Yes, the list was substantial, with the dates increasing rapidly over the past few months, and the bit about the erased footage was troubling, but really? Q was a traitor? He had the highest security clearance after M and Tanner, commanded an army of hackers and weapons makers, and could probably write unbreakable codes in his sleep. For MI6 to suspect Q of anything was to admit they had been careless enough to throw a live grenade into a warehouse of fireworks._

_"Bond," M had sighed, "it's not only that. Q refuses to tell us where he's been." Bond stared. M continued, "I sat down with him in my office and asked him what's been going on; if he's in trouble, if there's been a family emergency. He flat out told me he didn't know what I was talking about. So I showed him this list, and he looked me in the eye and said he didn't know what it was."_

_"Huh. The little shit," Bond said mildly. Now it was M's turn to stare. "Agent, do you understand how serious this is?"_

_Bond sighed. "Yes, M, I do. I suppose you want me to find the hacker."_

_"No, Bond. I want you to question Q."_

_Bond froze; anticipating as usual, he had been on his way out the door. "What?" he asked, believing he surely must have heard wrong. "He's my quartermaster. In what possible way is this a good idea?"_

_"Bond, someone stole intelligence from us and sold it to terrorists. We are incredibly short on time here. There could be another attack coming, something much worse. And if Q is involved..." Here M paused, mouth working as though it did not know how to form the next words. "I've given clearance to use hyoscine pentothal."_

_Hyoscine penthothal. The torture drug. _On Q._ "You honestly believe that is necessary?" he asked, his voice suddenly cold and deadly. M sighed and ran a hand over his face. "I don't want to, Bond. God, please believe that. That's why I want you to question him. He works more closely with you than any other agent. He'll talk to you."_

_"And if he doesn't?" Bond asked._

_M's eyes hardened. "It's an assignment, 007. Treat it as such."_

...

"Hello, 007."

Q did not sound surprised to see him, or angry, or afraid, or anything for that matter. His greeting was as calm and pleasantly polite as ever, just as though Bond had stepped into his lab. As though his wrists and ankles were not currently strapped to a chair. As though a technician was not searching his pale forearm for a suitable vein.

"Hello, Q," Bond responded, just as blandly. As though this was not a horrific mockery of what he otherwise considered a routine part of his job. "Mind telling me how you managed to get yourself accused of treason?" He did not smile, there was no lightness to his voice, because there was nothing funny about this. On the contrary, Bond was having difficulty reconciling what he was seeing. The interrogation room was one he had been in many times, possibly. MI6 contained several rooms like this, and they all looked the same. Gray walls, sparse florescent lights, steel tables and chairs. No curves existed to gentle the architecture expect for a drain in the floor. It was a bleakly predictable room, one that never held any surprises, except for today's occupant.

Q, like the room, was familiar to Bond, even without his cardigan, and with his untucked white shirt hanging loose around his body. He looked smaller and more washed out than usual. Q and this room did not go together in Bond's head. This room was made of straight lines, and squares, and unforgiving grays. Q, with his flowing, cultured voice, his delicate bones, the swatches of color in his eyes and cheeks and ridiculous jumpers, did not fit this room. No part of Q fit this room.

In spite of the severity of it all, Q quirked his lips. "Multitasking, I suppose."

Bond remained impassive. "I didn't come here to make jokes, Q." Q's face softened into a sort of quiet resolution. "No. I know that."

"Then you understand what's going to happen next. You understand what they've sent me in here to do."

"I've been told I'm a genius, so yeah, I get it," Q responded dryly.

"Then you also know this, all of this, can be avoided."

"You could just try believing me when I say I had nothing to do with the breach."

Bond pointedly ignored that, because Q knew better. He stood at the table across from the quartermaster, and flipped open the file in front of him. "Whoever did this was able to bypass every trap you set up. Who else might know your system as well as you do?"

Q sighed roughly and dropped his head back. "I don't know, Bond," he groaned at the ceiling.

"I'm trying to help you, Q. If there's no one outside of MI6..."

Q cut him off. "I am not incriminating any of my people." He glared solidly at him across the table. "I thought you trusted my judgement."

Bond has been expecting this to get personal, but he uncomfortably noted that the quartermaster's statement stung more than it should have. Returning his focus to the task at hand, he pulled a sheet of paper from his file and pushed it across the table. "Where were you on these dates?" Q glanced at the sheet and said nothing.

"You covered your tracks well, but you were not in MI6 on any of these days, nor were you cleared to be out on official business. So I ask again, where were you?"

"I don't remember," Q said evenly.

Bond did not buy that for a second. He sighed in frustration. "Q, you have an eidetic memory. You somehow manage to remind us of it every other day. You know where you were. Just tell me and we can end this nonsense." Because, he told himself, there was no way Q was involved in this. No way.

Q looked straight into Bond's eyes. "I. Don't. Remember."

_"Goddammit Q!"_ Bond flung the file against the wall, stalked around the table, and roughly grabbed Q's arms. He was angry now. Suddenly, frighteningly angry. Because this was Q. The man who led him through missions. Who created weapons for him that were as elegant as they were deadly; weapons Bond knew would never fail him because they had come from Q's hands. Who knew exactly what he did on every assignment because he was in his goddamn ear, but still greeted him with a patient, nonjudgemental smile every time he stepped into the lab.

He trusted Q. And Q had just lied to him.

For the first time since Bond had walked in, he saw fear in Q's eyes. The quartermaster accompanied him on every mission, tucked safely behind his screens and satellites. He was familiar with the brutal intensity with which Bond handled his anger, but never before had it been directed at him.

Now, with his face so close to his quartermaster's that he could feel the ends of brown curls brushing his own forehead, the agent drew in a deep breath. He reminded himself that while Q was a colleague, a friend even, only one person had ever held the most guarded piece of him in her hands. This was not history repeating itself. He could salvage this.

"Q," he said softly. "Come on. Help me fix this." Q said nothing. He stared at Bond as though he was seeing through him, his mouth pressed tight, his fingers flexing on the steel armrests.

"007, I'm ready to call it," said M in Bond's ear. His voice was regretful, but firm.

_"Q."_ Bond hissed again, squeezing the thin arms insistently. Q still said nothing. Bond released him with a sigh.

"Just...could you please..." The quartermaster swallowed dryly and shrugged one shoulder, indicating his glasses. Realizing, with a kind of dull horror, what he wanted, Bond reached out and slid the black frames off his face. He did it carefully, so as not to touch skin and feel Q's heart pounding in his temples. He folded them and set them carefully on the table, then stepped back to the other side of it.

"Do it," he said to the technician, without taking his eyes off Q, because if nothing else he could do him the courtesy of looking him in the face as he made this happen. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the tech insert a syringe of hyoscine pentothal into the IV line that trailed from his black briefcase to Q's left arm. Bond began to count.

It took three seconds. Q's body went ridged, arching away from the chair, his mouth opened wide in a frozen expression of shock. It was always a shock at first. The body never knew what to do with the pain that seemed to hit every muscle and nerve ending at once. Q held that posture for an impressive four seconds more before he pitched forward, doubling over on himself with gasping cries that jerked his body from shoulders to hips.

"Breathe Q," Bond heard himself say. "You are putting too much pressure on your need to sit up and breathe." He could not look away from the thin hands squeezing the chair arms, skin stretched so tightly he swore he could see bone. An agonizing seven seconds more, and Q managed to force himself upright and pull in a solid breath of air.

"October 26th. First date listed. Where were you?" Bond asked.

Q fought with himself for a moment. "Out," he finally grunted between clenched teeth. _Obviously_, Bond thought, but this was no time for sarcasm. Q was controlling himself well, but the cracks were beginning to show. The sooner he broke through them, the sooner this would be over. For both of them.

"Out where, Q? I need a name."

"The - the Rose."

"All right. Good, Q. The next date? October 30th?"

"S-same."

"You were at The Rose every time?"

"No. Other places."

"Where?"

"The-the Porterhouse. Wagamama's. The bloody McDonalds around the corner-" The last word ended on a sharp cry that Q managed to suppress into a shudder. Worry gnawed at Bond's stomach, and not just from the sight of the quartermaster again gasping for breath and doubling over as far as his restraints would allow. Q was a creature of habit. Everything from the brand of tea he drank to the way he arranged his desk had never changed as long as Bond had known him. Such fastidiousness was especially noticeable in someone so young. Yet the handful of eateries Q had just named were scattered across central London.

Desperate to not prolong this, Bond jumped to he most likely conclusion. "Who were you meeting?" Q looked up, chest heaving. His eyes were wide and naked for a moment before he slammed the remains of his composure back into place. His hands clenched into fists. He was holding on with everything he had, but Bond had seen the fleeting desperation in his face.

"Q, if you're being coerced you have to tell me." At that, Q barked out a laugh so jagged it seemed to rip the air in two. _"Don't insult me 007,"_ he ground out. Bond remained stoic even as the last of his hopes withered away. One did not become the youngest head of Q-Branch in M16 history by being easily intimidated. Q had always made sure his every action, his every decision, told the world that everything he had done and would ever do would be of his own free will. Even betrayal. Bond knew him well enough to know that. He heard a faint curse in his ear; M must have come to the same conclusion. "007, we're going to have to go one higher."

"No," he said automatically, but M continued insistently. "007, either he stays at this level in agony for god knows how long, or we go one higher and get this over with sooner."

Bond looked at his quartermaster. "Q, you have to tell me _now_."

"No," Q said. "Don't-" He stopped himself, but Bond knew the sentence would have been, "Don't make me."

"Two cc's more."

Three seconds later, Q's head whipped back and he _screamed_. Bond clenched his hand into a fist to stop himself from pulling the needle out of his quartermaster's arm. The sharp dig of his nails into his palm reminded him to keep his voice steady, measured, controlled.

"Who were you meeting?"

Q was hunched forward now, staring into a middle distance Bond had never contemplated this young man would ever have to see. He raised his head, eyes wrecked.

"James," he gasped horsely. "James, _please-_"

And that almost did him in, more than anything else. He could count on one hand the number of times Q had called him by his first name. None of them had been good. "Q," he said softly.

Q fought. He fought hard, screwing is eyes and mouth shut, locking his shoulders, but in the end the word was torn from him. _"Becky!"_ he screamed. Then, a broken gasp, "Rebecca Green. My sister."

"007?" M asked.

There was nothing left to consider. At this point, Q was no longer capable of telling a lie. Bond knew that from experience. "We're done," he said shortly, striding around the table and kneeling in front of the quartermaster's chair. He pulled the needle out as swiftly as he could before taking Q's face in his hands, ignoring how his fingers slid against the mixture of sweat, tears, and snot that streaked the young man's face. "Q, it's over. We're done. It's done," he said, over and over, but Q did not hear him because Q was _sobbing_.

Suddenly, the empty space was sucked out of the room as a medical team entered, and Bond was brushed aside. They worked rapidly, undoing Q's restraints and lifting him onto a gurney. When they were finished, Bond made to follow them, but a hand to his chest stopped him and he found himself looking into the storm cloud eyes of the team's head doctor.

"I need to see him," Bond tried to explain.

"After." The doctor firmly cut him off. "After we're finished and _if_ he wants to see you, we'll send for you."

Bond opened his mouth to protest, but the doctor stopped him with a shake of her head, her eyes a clear reflection of everything she had seen come out of this room.

"Trust me," she said. "Wait for him to ask to see you." With that, she left Bond alone in the square gray room, with papers scattered across the surgically clean floor, and Q's glasses lying forgotten on the steel table.

...

A/N. Part two coming soon. Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

Summary: The conclusion of To Salvage One Inch. The aftermath of Q's interrogation.

Rating: T

Warnings: More swears. More not being British. And a very optimistic view of how people act when they've just been through a trauma. (Just felt the need to add that out of respect for people who do survive a traumatic event, because I really do know better.)

Disclaimer: I do not own the James Bond franchise. But if I did you can be damn sure that Q would be in like every scene in the next movie and he and Bond would have adventures together and maybe a few heart to heart discussions and...yeah. I don't own it.

To Salvage One Inch

Two hours later, Bond received the call telling him he could see Q. He had spent these past two hours sifting through everything M's investigators could dig up about Rebecca Green. He had a picture of her in front of him now. She looked different enough from Q that a casual observer would likely not peg them as related. Rebecca Green had a narrower face, brown eyes instead of green, and mahogany hair that was stick-straight rather than curly. Yet there was something...the unreadableness of her eyes, the neutral set of her thin lips, a face that managed to look old and young at the same time, that convinced Bond the quartermaster had been telling the truth, about this at least.

...

_"She's his half sister," M had said. "Different fathers. She's about five years younger than him. The handful of waiters and establishment owners we've managed to talk to remembered them. They would stay for hours sitting and talking. He always paid for her."_

_"Charges?" Bond asked. He was, after all, looking at a mug shot._

_"A few over the past couple of years for drug possession and prostitution. That's it."_

_"Is Rebecca Green her real name?"_

_"We're not sure. Possibly not."_

_"Seriously?" Bond could barely conceal his aggravation, and to be honest he was not trying very hard._

_M had sighed then. "Q wasn't lying about his innocence. We've got enough to cover his alibi. But he hid this girl well. There's no mention of her in his files, and the information we've managed to uncover is minimal. She's almost entirely off the grid."_

_"No idea why?"_

_"None. Any chance Q might tell you?"_

_"What do you think?" Bond had snapped, and hung up, even though the man had had enough decency to sound guilty._

...

Bond approached Q's curtained off bed in the infirmary warily. The wing was quiet, and he was grateful for that. No one must have told Q's minions what had happened. To his great relief the long white room, as well as the corridor, had been suspiciously devoid of them. They were the last people on Earth Bond felt capable of facing right now, with the quartermaster himself coming in a close second. He steeled himself, and pulled the curtain back.

Q was sitting up, regarding him with an unnervingly calm expression. He looked...all right, Bond had to admit. True, his skin was pale and the bags under his eyes were deep purple, but these were nothing out of the ordinary for Q, who often worked until the late hours of the night, surviving on caffeine and innovation. Except for the fact that he looked disturbingly _worn_ around the edges; eyes too dull, hair flattened by old sweat, nothing spoke of his ordeal.

With a nod of his head, Q indicated the regulation metal chair beside his bed, and Bond took a seat, surveying the space as he did so. An IV stood beside the bed, but the quartermaster had no further need of it. The only equipment being used was the machine monitoring his heart rate and blood pressure. There was also a small bedside table, which held nothing but Q's Scrabble mug. "Eve was here," Q said, seeing Bond take note of it. His voice was raspy. "She may shoot you again." Bond could not decide whether Q was making a joke. He just nodded, deciding to play it safe and assume that, under the circumstances, Q was not.

They looked at each other, the agent and the quartermaster. Bond did not know what to say. Q was sitting there, looking at him expectantly, and Bond did not know what to say. _How do you feel_ would be asinine. _You look good_ would be callus, as would any comment about how well Q had held up under the torture, even though Bond had seen grown men three times Q's size fall to pieces at the first prick of the needle. Most damningly, _I'm sorry_ stuck in his throat. That phrase always had. Bond had never, and would never, apologize for doing his job. But with Q sitting there, waiting for him to say something and every line of his body showing disappointment as the silence stretched on, Bond blurted out, "It shouldn't have been me."

Unfortunately, even that was wrong. One look from Q told him how selfish that sentence had been. "Yes, it should have," Q said incredulously. "Bond, you know as well as I do that if it had been anyone else in that room they would have been ordered to go much higher with the drug."

Bond said nothing; he could only nod and look at his shoes.

"They know how well we work together," Q continued, and Bond looked up with a start. But Q was not looking at him, he was staring straight ahead, and his voice had taken on a sharp edge that made Bond instantly wary. "They could be reasonably sure I would tell you the truth. They know I trust you, you see."

"Q," Bond began, but the quartermaster kept talking, seeming to not hear him.

"So when they accused me of treason, they remembered how I know every detail of your missions. How I bring you home _safe_. How I build your goddamn _weapons_..."

_"Q!"_ Bond said again, soft and sorry now, because this was not just anger. This was hurt. Q's breathing was harsh and ragged, his eyes were wide, and he was clenching the sheets in his fists the same way he had clenched the arms of his chair as the drug ran through his veins. Fearful of what the monitor was suddenly showing, Bond forgot himself and moved to sit on the edge of the bed, one hand going to rest on Q's heaving shoulder.

He had made a huge mistake.

He should not be doing this; should not even be here. He should have listened to M (both M's) for once and waited until the fucking therapy sessions because he and Q were not fit to be in the same _room_, much less running missions together...

But Q did not pull away from him. On the contrary, he turned towards Bond and leaned until they were almost touching. Not quite, but almost. He stayed close and simply breathed slow, measured breaths. The edges of Bond's heart tightened as he realized Q, who knew so much about him, from hight and weight to where he preferred to holster his gun, to which missions made him anxious and which made him break things upon his return, was relearning him. Relearning Bond to assure himself that Bond was safe. Bond did not move, did not dare move. He was under no illusions that he was in any way a safe person; he had lived and seen too much, but for some unexplainable reason he could not stand the thought of this young man having a reason to think otherwise. Finally, Q began to lower himself forward by degrees until his forehead rested against Bond's shoulder. Only then did the agent tighten his arm around Q's back; with his other hand he began to rub circles into the nape of Q's neck.

They sat like that in silence for a while. Bond felt Q's racing heart slow down and the muscles in his neck and back loosen until it felt like he was not so much holding a frightened rabbit as an exhausted young man.

Q muttered something from the fabric of his shoulder. "What's that?" Bond asked softly, somewhat lulled himself by the rhythm of another's heartbeat and the muted hum of activity around the curtained off bed. Q's bony shoulders sagged in a sigh and he turned his face to one side. "I said 'ask.' I know you want to."

"It can wait," Bond insisted. His fingers had not stopped moving in Q's hair.

"No, it can't," Q said. "I take it you've received information about her."

"Not much," Bond admitted.

"There isn't much," Q replied. "I made sure of that."

"Why?" Bond asked. He managed to stop before he said _what has she done?_ But the question must have been clear in his voice because Q answered it anyway.

"It's not what she's done, but what she might do. Or more to the point, what MI6 thinks she might do. She's a genius."

"Like you?"

"Almost like me," Q clarified without a trace of arrogance. He was simply stating it for the fact it was. "But do you remember when I told you six people could write the same failsafes I could? And therefore six people could break them?" Bond nodded. "Becky could be the seventh. If she wanted to be."

"And does she?" Bond had to ask. Q shook his head emphatically. "No. Absolutely not. But...she hasn't been doing so well lately. I imagine you've gathered that much. So I've been meeting with her as often as I can, making sure she's ok, giving her money so she doesn't have to..." He cut himself off abruptly. "That's it. That was always it."

"Then why lie?" Bond could not keep the frustration out of his voice. "Why would you go through that if she's done nothing wrong? My god, if she's as brilliant as you say M would probably find a job for her."

"He might," Q sighed. "Or decide she's too dangerous for anyone else to get ahold of and tuck her away somewhere until there's a use for her. She deserves to make the choice herself."

"So you were protecting her," Bond said with a nod. This he understood.

"Yes," Q said. "And also..." He pulled away from Bond and studied his face intently. His mouth turned down at the corners as it always did when he was considering how to explain something. "Becky...she's my sister. I love her _so much_."

"Of course you do," said Bond, puzzled. Did Q really think he had to explain this to him?

"No, you don't understand," Q said. "I've given everything I have to MI6. My talent, my past, my name." He was beginning to sound distressed again, his hands and eyes were moving restlessly. "And to an extent I've given it all gladly. But...sometimes I feel like I've got nothing left. They've cracked me open; there's nothing they haven't seen. Nothing left that's _mine_. And some things, how I feel, who I love, some things they shouldn't be allowed to take." He dropped his head into his hands and burrowed his fingers into his hair. "I know that doesn't make much sense," he said, his voice muffled. "I sound foolish."

"No. No you don't, not at all," Bond said urgently, not wanting to lose Q to that dark place he had seen behind his eyes as he watched him shake from across a steel table. "Q, you have someone who means that much to you. Someone you're willing to go through hell for. That's extraordinary. We should all be so lucky."

Q dropped his hands from his head and slumped back onto his pillows. He rolled his eyes to the ceiling and gave a mirthless laugh. "Yeah, I feel really fucking lucky." Bond remained quiet because who was he to try to argue that right now? "You should get some more rest," he said instead. "I won't disturb you any longer." He made to leave, but Q's voice stopped him just as he was pulling the curtain back. "You can stay for a bit. That is, if you like." Bond looked back and saw that Q had settled down on his pillows as though ready for sleep, but he was watching him out of the corner of his eye. Surprised, and humbled at this display of trust, Bond returned to his seat.

They were both quiet for a while. Bond, unsure of what to do with himself, glanced around the space, studying the folds of the curtain. Then he happened to look down at Q and noticed that he was not asleep. He kept shifting restlessly. His hands worried the sheets. He moved his head from side to side, struggling to get comfortable. Finally, Bond laid a hand on Q's wrist, lightly rubbing his fingertips against his sleeve. The repetitive motion seemed to sooth Q, for he stopped fidgeting. Truth be told, Bond found it soothing as well. He stopped restlessly glancing around and let his gaze rest on Q's face.

"Are we going to be all right?" he couldn't help but ask.

Q cracked open one eye. "I believe so," he said. "But you're not to shout at me for at least a month."

"Of course," he said softly.

"And I expect coffee. The good stuff."

"The best." Softer still.

Q closed his eyes, and Bond watched his face relax and listened to his breath even out until he was sure the quartermaster was asleep. "I trust you with my life," he said quietly, sincerely. "Please know that."

It was the best way he could think of to say _thank you_.

_Thank you for letting me salvage this._

...

_Every last inch of me shall perish. Except one. An inch. It's small and it's fragile and it's the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us._

_- V for Vendetta_

...

As always, thank you for reading!


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